I know I’m not super active on this blog, but I want to share something I wrote in April 2024 in the aftermath of my college’s encampment for Palestine. I was 18. I hope someone gets something out of it.
kites will fly over the vcu encampment
we were singing liberation songs when the riot squad came, in long white buses, kevlar-plexiglass exoskeletons, twitchy and eager–they encircled us, and I prayed. between the library and the cathedral we faced each other: rag tag students, holding on, stay close, stay tight, we will be alright–the police, a circle of shields silhouetted by that blinding blinking blue, and the siren sounding throughout campus–and our classmates gathering at the library windows, watching, filming, we held our hands out to them and said join us and many did
and I prayed until I choked on it, prayed until I was sobbing on it, breath hitching, white knuckling cross and keffiyeh. I had left a sign somewhere on the lawn, hand painted—blessed are the peacemakers—which would soon be trampled by heavy-duty boots
and we were holding only our palettes and each other’s shoulders–free palestine and flowers and stars painted on wood and skin–children holding on with trembling hands–and we sang still, our songs lifted high above the lawn, the pepper spray, the rifles whose presence permeated my peripheral like nothing else. we kept singing–Gaza, you do not walk alone
and I prayed and I knew we would not win this
my heart sliming down my spine, I accepted defeat. they kettled us back against the library windows so tight i could not tell where I ended and my comrades began but the classmates, on the other side of the glass, pounded their fists and screamed for us and I prayed Our Father, who art in Heaven as the cop grabbed at the girl in front of me, and I could not pick out her scream for the way it mingled with everyone else’s, but I held her and I held her and I held her, and I do not know her name but she was not arrested that night, although Sereen was, her eye and jaw blackened by riot shields, her arm twisted into a cast, another hurt to the hundreds
and I held her and I held her and my eyes, squinting through the sting of pepper spray, searched for anything and found the cathedral’s cross, high above us with our songs–serene in the soft moonlight, peace above the brutality. above classmates pinned by knees to the grass where we had danced, peace above the soldiers, peace above us shouting who do you protect, who do you serve? and when we all raised 2 fingers, a V, in the air and chanted peaceful protest I raised mine to the cross
and I prayed, and God said, blessed are my peacemakers, and classmates flooded, then, out of the library and the dining hall and joined us, until it seemed the whole school and city was there, arms around each other’s shoulders, and we did not win but our hearts strengthened and I knew that, soon–within our lifetimes–we would
when there is peace I will return to that lawn where I first witnessed the Kingdom of Heaven and I will fly a kite.
more than that: I will fly tens of thousands of kites for every name I can–for Refaat, and for Hind, and for Shireen, and for Mahmoud, and for Sham and for Ahmed and Mays and Ali and Basil and Heba and Rushdi and Mahdiya and Nada and Musab and Asmaa and Raouf and Tariq and Suhail and Julie and Majd and Rayan and Mian and Salam and Zein and Yasmine and Maria and Aisha and Rahima and Mohammed and Tia and Bahaa and Rakan and Musk and Moas and Qais and Nabil and Alma and Misk and Unknown and Not Yet Named and–
snowghoul
romaincrisis
2087
